Languages & regions
hreflang href is not fully qualified
One of the 136 checks Lala SEO runs on every page of a site in a free audit.
- How serious
- Worth fixing. Weakens how Google reads or shows the page. Fix after the serious ones.
- Based on
- Google's own documentation
What is wrong
Your hreflang tags are using relative URLs instead of absolute ones. An hreflang tag tells search engines which version of a page is meant for which country or language. When you write the link as `/en/page` instead of `https://example.com/en/page`, search engines may not understand which site you are referring to, especially if your content is syndicated or appears on multiple domains.
Why it costs you
Search engines may ignore these hreflang signals entirely, which means they could show the wrong language or regional version to your visitors. Someone in France might get served the English version when the French version exists. You also lose the ability to consolidate rankings across your regional versions.
How to fix it
Add the full website address to every hreflang href attribute. In your page template, change `<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="/en/page">` to `<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/page">`. Make sure every hreflang link starts with `https://` and includes your full domain name. Do this in your template so the fix applies to all pages at once.
What the audit tests
- Each hreflang address resolves to a full http:// or https:// URL
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